| Abstract: | Background: Patients with psychotic disorders are assumed to experience significant distress, especially during their first episode. It is unclear whether such distress is associated with the level of psychotic or other symptoms and/or to other characteristics such as level of self‐esteem. Methods: One hundred and five patients who presented with first episode psychosis (FEP) (54% male; mean age 22.74 years; 79.4% schizophrenia; 20.6% affective psychosis) were administered the Symptom Checklist 90‐Revised (SCL‐90‐R) at first presentation for treatment. Four indices derived from the SCL‐90‐R were used as measures of distress. Psychopathology was assessed with the Calgary Depression Scale, the Hamilton Anxiety Scale, the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms and the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms and self‐esteem with the Self‐esteem Rating Scale.Spearman's Correlation coefficients were calculated, followed by a regression analysis. Results: Measures of distress were highly correlated with depression (rho = 0.44–0.56), and anxiety (rho = 0.38–0.48), modestly with lack of judgement and insight (rho = ?0.28 to ?0.37) and not with positive or negative symptoms of psychosis. In a smaller sample (n = 68) distress measures were also highly correlated with self‐esteem (rho = ?0.55 to ?0.73). Logistic regression confirmed that self‐esteem explained 53% of the total variance explained (57%) by any combination of the independent variables. Conclusion: Distress experienced by individuals suffering from FEP is associated with levels of self‐esteem, depression and anxiety and not with the level of psychotic or negative symptoms. Self‐esteem may play a significant role in the magnitude of distress experienced by patients presenting with a FEP. |
